The Terms of Service for the newCrysis 3 open beta includes language about banning players for not reporting bugs, recalling the recently quelled controversy over the SimCity beta ToS threating a mab from all EA games for failure to report bugs. This new End-User License Agreement issue apparently has the same resolution as the previous one, as games.on.net notes a tweet explaining: "We did - it was baked into the Beta before we realized it had the 'Bug Ban' clause. We aren't enforcing that." They also link a follow-up tweet saying: "We'll be releasing a blog post about that soon, but for now rest assured we aren't banning players for finding bugs." So we now know why EULAs and ToSes are so lengthy: Even the people making the games can't be bothered to read the crap they let their lawyers stuff into them.

So we now know why EULAs and ToSes are so lengthy: Even the people making the games can't be bothered to read the crap they let their lawyers stuff into them.

Win!

And this is exactly what I said about SimCity.

That doesnt excuse anything, or anybody. Ignorance is equivalent to negligence. If you cant even be bothered to read your own damn EULA for a product you are MAKING then you sir deserve any and ALL blame.

Passing the buck is all the rage in corporate and financial circles these days, but that doesnt mean its excusable.

Read my next post - these things aren't an accident and no one deserves "blame." And it isn't the job of the game designer to read the EULA. It would be nice if he did, but he has an entire legal team, who has an entire outside counsel team, dedicated to making these decisions. Even if he knows about these things he often can't fight them because:a) it isn't his job tob) it isn't his ass on the line if they get sued

The EULA has one purpose: to prevent the company from being sued. The counsel mostly has the same purpose. So EULAs are created by counsel to cover as much ass as possible. They overreach. They always overreach.

But the guy who is actually enforcing the EULA has no clue that it overreaches. He runs things the way he feels they should be run. He's not a jackass, and he'd never ban someone for not reporting a bug. Most people don't report bugs, and fuck, most people only find incredibly obvious bugs and you don't want them reporting it because 500 people already have.

Again, this does not mean people shouldn't complain and fight it, but just know it will always happen. The lawyers are paid exclusively to prevent the company from liability. The only way to do that is to overreach, because it becomes a cat-and-mouse game and some jackass will always find some jackass reason to sue, ruining it for everyone.